1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to novel data acquisition systems for use in hostile environments and particularly to data acquisition systems employing optical techniques for transferring automobile crash test data and high speed storing technique for storing the transferred data in memory in a less hostile environment such as those used in the storage system described in co-pending application, entitled "Serial Data Direct Memory Access System" of E. J. Holdren et al. Ser. No. 06/887,013, filed July 18, 1986.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In vehicle crash data acquiring systems various requirements have been proposed such as eight data channels for each seat position. Illustratively, a vehicle would have up to fifteen seating positions which would require 120 data channels. This number would be in addition to the current data channels of vehicle structural data. Current practices, includes using an onboard data acquiring unit which is connected to a remote data memory storage and debriefing unit.
An umbilical cable is used to connect the two units. If 8 channels of 12 bit data is transferred over an umbilical cable 108 wires would be needed in the cable for point to point transfer. Such a cable would be heavy and not very practical; the number of channels of data fall far short of the proposed at least 120 channels.
There are impact testing systems which use up to 50 data recorders with each recorder converting analog transient electrical signals into digital form at high sampling rates. Still again, there is a problem of weight within the vehicle and the bulkiness of a cable for transferring data to a remote area.
On board self-contained systems have been proposed wherein up to 32 channels of data can be acquired. But, these units would increase the weight of the crash vehicle and would stand a risk of being subjected to the hostile environment from which the data is to be accumulated.